January 30, 2011

FRANCES FOX PIVEN: “She wouldn’t even harm a fly.” “In the course of this brouhaha, it becomes apparent that leftist academics don’t want to be and should not be taken seriously, that the cultural elite can dish out violent rhetoric but cannot take being called on it, that the NYT has blundered into another loser of an argument, and that people who want to waste their tuition money should major in sociology, which has obviously become the redoubt of clueless, revolutionary manqués. . . . Piven denied to the NYT that she advocated violence in the article. It’s hard to see how that defense stands up, unless she is saying that she didn’t know what happened in Greece when she urged the American unemployed to take action ‘like the strikes and riots’ there.”

At the same time, tens of thousands of protesters marched through Athens in the largest and most violent protests since the country’s budget crisis began last fall. Angry youths rampaged through the center of Athens, torching several businesses and vehicles and smashing shop windows. Protesters and police clashed in front of parliament and fought running street battles around the city.

Witnesses said hooded protesters smashed the front window of Marfin Bank in central Athens and hurled a Molotov cocktail inside. The three victims died from asphyxiation from smoke inhalation, the Athens coroner’s office said. Four others were seriously injured there, fire department officials said.

Just for the record. And here’s the conclusion:

In sum, this was another week in which the media and cultural elites acted stupidly and were called on it. Twice in a row now they’ve tried to paint their opposition as violent thugs only to be revealed themselves as snobbish poseurs, projecting their own thuggish urges onto others. It was another week in which those living off the productive labor of others deride those others, try to undermine them, and are in the process undermining the very society which makes it possible for such foolish poseurs to live in comfort.